


I've Only Dreamed

by persephone20



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Happily Ever After, TVD episode: "One Ring to Kill Them All"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-02 01:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone20/pseuds/persephone20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt says, "Once you fall in love with someone, I don't know if you can ever shake them," and Elena's world explodes as she realises what this means with regards to her and Damon. Spoilers up to and including 3.16 "One Ring to Kill Them All".</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Only Dreamed

**Author's Note:**

> [ Aiden Hawken -- The Argument.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yGRK_5-iV8)
> 
> This is the song that plays during Matt and Elena's conversation in the series, and what I was listening to almost the whole time I was writing this. I wish I could embed it, but apparently I can't.

"It's like I knew that he would never stop loving me. Like he would never... die."

Elena's heart drops as she hears herself say this. She attempts the words a second time, in the attempt of making them sound more real.

"Like he would never die."

She's been coming to terms for a while now that, while still so fond of Stefan--who isn't fond of their first love?--she's already fallen out of love with him. They had their time, and it was so wonderful, so important to her just getting through the days back then. But it's over now. If Stefan stopped drinking blood today, she wouldn't go back with him. Couldn't. And that was one of the things that made seeing him like he was tonight so hard. That made hearing the words on Wickery Bridge when he sounded so sure that he'd already lost her. He was right. He had managed to heal her, to make her well again after the death of her parents, while he... he was worse off than ever before.

And there was exactly nothing she could do to save him.

Matt is the one with the question. "And Damon?"

"Damon just... sorta snuck up on me." She tries a laugh to lighten what she thinks is coming. What else was there to expect? Bonnie had taken a go at her and Damon, Caroline and Alaric had both made their opinions known. At least her conversation with Alaric had prepared her for the one with Caroline. 'I don't know' would never have been an answer that Caroline would have accepted in regards to what she was doing where Damon was concerned.

And so it seemed that tonight it was time to have the same conversation with Matt. He'd stood in line and he'd waited his turn. And maybe he'd been the one to step up last because he was the one who was the ex-boyfriend, the one who had the vested interest in whoever she chose to date now. Elena knew he still wasn't settled with whatever was going on between Caroline and Tyler.

"He got under my skin and no matter what I do I just... can't shake him." She's not even looking at him now, can't quite make herself face whatever expression is filling Matt's face. Repulsion, she thinks, is the most likely of them. She's telling the truth now, just like telling Caroline that she couldn't be with Damon--cause what would that make her?--had been true at the time. Just like she'd told Alaric she had no idea what she was doing with Damon before that. Her heart is beating fast in her chest, so fast that it feels like Matt should be able to see the flutter of it beneath the skin above her tank top.

Matt's not looking at her, though. He's looking off into space, like he's trying to come to terms with some sort of concept, and then find the ability to put it into words. 

He does, though, saying the one thing she truly never expected. "Once you fall in love with someone, I don't know if..."

And, just like that, everything stops. Elena heart feels like her heart shudders to a stop, as though all the breath in her body has been pushed out in one violent jerk. She can't breathe, she can barely look at Matt. 

"I don't know if you can ever shake them."

He looks at her expectantly after that, and it's all Elena can do just to keep acting normal after he's finished talking, to act as though he hasn't completely--inadvertantly--shattered her world. Pining glances across the room, whimsical fantasies, won't help anyone anymore. She has fought this as long as she could, and she has lost. Because she knows that, now it's been said out loud, she can't take her reaction back. She can't pretend she didn't feel what she felt when Matt said those words. She can't help the longing to see Damon, to get him to tell her his feelings again. Can't help the shudder of self-revulsion that follows. She has to say something, anything, to get the conversation flowing again after that. Something, anything, to get that expression off Matt's face when he realises that his words have triggered something in her that was unexpected to them both.

And then she's relieved beyond words when Alaric walks back into the house, because wondering what it makes her if she ends up with Damon is now the least of her worries. 

Alaric looks surprised at the greeting, even after having been stuck in jail for the majority of the day. Matt gets up and excuses himself. Elena glances off at him longingly as he goes. Why couldn't she have loved him? Why couldn't, after she fell out of love with Stefan, after everything between them had worked its way through and they'd outgrown each other, why wouldn't she go back into that life--that love--that she had before her parents died? Matt had grown too, had lost his sister, had to let her go a second time. She thought about what little Matt had to go home to and she wished she could want to be that person for him. It would have been simpler. 

But since when was anything in her life simpler?

*

Her realisation hopelessly changes everything in the dynamic between her and Damon. The next time she sees him is when he's walking into the Mystic Grill. She's sitting there nursing a drink and waiting for Matt to have his break. When Damon and Stefan walk by, she immediately stands up to greet them, then stops herself. The movement doesn't escape Damon's quick eyes and, for a moment, there's an almost questioning expression in them. Then it's gone, like Damon remembers that they are going back to the status quo of a year ago, whether he has to drag them all there himself or not. 

Problem is, a year ago is about as far from what Elena wants as anything gets. As she watches Damon and Stefan, she notes that the older brother is simply taking the things he wants out of the year they both came back to Mystic Falls. The desire to make her hate him. The desire to see her and Stefan back together, one assumes, to assauage the guilt that he'll completely deny now that he's feeling. 

But there are things that aren't the same. None of them have seen Katherine in months, though of course she must be around. More importantly, Damon is holding Stefan's hand around town. Oh, not literally. Even Damon wouldn't make such an attention seeking gesture and, if he did, Stefan would almost certainly never have it. But they are buddying up, working together. Damon is helping Stefan, helping him like Elena always thought she would be doing herself, before she realised that her love for him was like a child's love, and one she'd accidentally outgrown. 

That cements the thought in her head. She's not going to just sit here and wait for one of them to make a move, or wait for Matt to have his break. She walks across the bar to speak to the two brothers because, after everything they've all been through together, there should be no weirdness in her standing beside them.

Mostly, there's narrowed eyes and provocative comments, for all the world as if it was Damon feeding from a woman in the street that she and Matt had come across. Elena can't help the habit that has her glancing at Stefan for support, and finding none.

"I'm not interested in rising to the bait, Damon," Elena answers, and the dynamic has changed between them all whether she likes it or not. It couldn't have come at a worse time. Elena wonders what would have changed if she had had her great revelation before she had told Damon that maybe his feelings were the problem. She hadn't seen any evidence of them since, nor any evidence that they would be coming back. 

Damon sneers, and says, "Such a pity." He turns away, but Stefan is watching very carefully. Even through everything that has changed about the man she used to love, he is still the observant of the two brothers. He sees something in her eyes before Elena can hide it away. She ducks her head, but it's too late. Stefan, of all people, knows what it looks like when Elena has love, and pain, shining from her eyes.

"I've got to go," she says, and she hopes that Matt's willing to take his break outside of the Grill, because that's what the plan is now. 

"I thought you weren't rising to the bait?" Damon starts, but Elena hears his softer, "What?" which she can only assume means that Stefan has said something to him.

She's horrified. Mortified. The heat stoves used to cook the burgers at the Mystic Grill have nothing on Elena's face. She thinks that the only thing worse than feeling this way is having Damon become aware of it, and then deciding to use it against her. She doesn't think she can face that. She saw firsthand what he did to Caroline when she fancied herself having feelings for him right at the start. She knows that he compelled Andrea Starr, and she can see herself becoming just one in a long list of women who fell for Damon Salvatore and just stopped living. Even Rose hadn't long outlived Damon's attentions.

And then, she realises, this is what Damon has lived through every day since her mother outed Damon's feelings.... and Elena didn't return them. Sure, her romantic attentions haven't led to dead bodies yet, but the number of people dead in the persuit of her safety just keeps on rising. 

She thinks through every time that she has used the information of Damon's feelings for her to get him to do something he wouldn't ordinarily do, to come around to something she wanted him to do just because it would be more convenient to her. What was that if not taking away someone's will? Sure, she hadn't compelled him with a vampire power, but something about her had compelled him just the same.

Damon runs out of the Mystic Grill as though being chased. His eyes widen as he sees Elena loitering just outside, but there is nothing Damon can do to hide the urgency that had pressed him out of the Grill. He tries it anyway, crossing his arms and leaning against the brick wall beside the entrance. His eyes reflect that he knows both of them see it as a lie. 

"Thought you were leaving," he murmurs.

Elena shrugs, glancing back towards the inside of the Grill. "I'm just... waiting for Matt."

Damon nods. Looks away. Elena watches the muscles in his jaw work. "Look. I didn't mean for you to see that stuff with Stefan the other night." It sounds like the words are being forcibly pulled from his mouth. He stares steadily at the ground between them. "It's not like I staged it elaborately for you."

"I know that." But it was good to hear. Elena swallows. "What _were_ you doing?"

Damon looks up, obviously surprised at the question. "I'm trying to help him. Help him see drinking blood as not an all or nothing scenario." His jaw flexes again, and he shakes his head, before looking back down to the ground. "He's got a problem and, until he can deal with it..."

"What?" Elena prompted, daring to take one step towards him. "What do you see happening when you cure him of being a Ripper?"

"You can be together agian." Damon's eyes are of the clearest blue as they pierce through her so cleanly that Elena's not even sure she feels the wound immediately. "Like both of you want to be."

Elena shudders out a breath that she fears might end up being a desperate laugh if she doesn't contain it. "You think you know what I want."

Damon's eyes sharpen further in shock. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that, don't think you know so much about what I want." Elena shakes her head. "You clearly have no idea."

"Do I..." Damon frowns. His eyes deliberately observe that the distance between them that has been minimised by Elena, but he makes no movement himself. "Several months of seeing you moon over my brother... I think I have a pretty good idea of it by now."

Elena just presses her lips together. Then nods. "Then I guess we don't have anything else to talk about."

Damon pushes away from the brick wall and Elena thinks he's about to make something of it, when he says only, "I guess we don't." He turns back towards the Mystic Grill, letting the door slam shut behind him. 

Elena exhales shakily. Then she thinks to pull out her phone. No missed messages or phone calls from Matt. Maybe he just didn't get a break this evening. Strange, it didn't look that busy in there.

*

"I'm sorry, Elena. Stefan just wouldn't let me go outside to see you. Said you and Damon had something you needed to talk about? I didn't really want to go up against Stefan after what we saw the other night." Matt's voice is clearly apologetic over the phone. He only pauses a second, before he asks, "Is everything alright with you and Damon?"

Elena just closes her eyes and leans against the kitchen wall at her place. "No, everything's fine. And I'm not upset."

There's a pause, before Matt says, " _Did_ you and Damon have something you needed to talk about?"

"There was some talking," Elena says evasively, pulling away from the kitchen wall. "I'm not sure why Stefan made such a big deal of it, though."

"Uh _huh_." Matt doesn't say anything explicitly, but Elena knows him well enough to know the kind of expression he's pulling right now. She decides it's better to pretend she doesn't.

"Anyway, raincheck?" Elena offers, more to change the subject than anything else. "When are you next working at the Grill?"

*

_Come by the boarding house. Now._

Nothing more than that. And Elena jolts when she sees the name STEFAN appear on her phone. It's only then that she realises just how long it's been since she received a message from her ex-boyfriend. 

Instead of jumping to it, like she once would have, Elena just looks at the text message for a long time, examining the feelings she has. Is this an attempt by Stefan to get her back? Elena is surprised by the visceral reaction she has against that. She closes her eyes, merely holding the phone in her hand for a moment, without looking at the message. If Stefan wants her back, she's going to have to be strong, be kind, but be clear that everything Stefan said was true. He has already lost her. 

She opens her eyes, then considers the message again. What if it isn't a message for Stefan's sake? What would she say if Stefan was inviting her over because Damon wouldn't? Would she object to Stefan trying to set her and Damon up as much as she objected to Damon doing the same? It was pretty damned weird to think of the hypothetical. With Matt, she felt strange just talking about the Salvatore brothers, and they hadn't gone out for years now. For Stefan to try to arrange things between Elena and his brother? 

And yet, stranger things have come and gone through Elena's life recently. The hope she feels at the off chance she's right answers her question neatly, but goes nowhere in telling her how to handle Stefan's text.

There is a third possibility. Klaus was still in town. He'd been quiet for a while, but that was the exception, not the rule. Elena knew better than most people in this town just how quickly and thoroughly he could go from barely there to turning a person's life upsidedown. 

And so she sends back the only reply she really can. _Why?_

She can almost hear the exasperated sigh from Stefan at the recieval of his return message. It's a kind of sigh that wasn't included in the earlier model of Stefan and, in Elena's opinion, isn't really an improvement.

_I'll tell you when you're here._

_How do I know this isn't a trap?_

_Would Damon let you walk into a trap?_

_Damon's not the one texting me right now._

There's a pause in their bevy of texts. Then, Stefan's reply vibrates in Elena's hand, _And that's really the problem right now, isn't it?_

Elena feels short of breath. It's the only verbal confirmation that Elena has had that Stefan really did observe the feelings plainly written on Elena's face the other night. Another message comes through shortly after, without Elena's need to reply to the first one. _Come over to the boarding house. I promise you'll like what you see._

Elena doesn't know what to do. It seems foolish to just go over, and yet cowardly if she doesn't. She wants to text Damon, to make sure he's there, or make sure he knows that Stefan's invited her over, but that seems dumb as well. Maybe, if they were close like they had been before Stefan came back into town... But they 're not. And that's mostly Elena's fault. Pretty much only Elena's fault.

If she's going to be able to do anything about that, she's going to have to take some action. Any action is better than no action right now, and Elena doesn't relish the alternative of sitting around in her bedroom, wondering what those text messages were about.

*

She arrives into the boarding house tenuously after standing at the front door for long moments and wondering whether or not she should knock. She supposes, technically, this house was still in her name. It seems foolish, after everything, to stop and knock at this door. She's hardly done it since the first few times she came to this house.

But she seriously considers it now. 

In the end, she feels like catching Stefan unawares, or at least less aware, may be the best thing, and so she opens the front door and strides into the living area.

Stefan is nowhere to be seen. Damon, however, is lounged over the whole of one of the couches, reading a book. 

He stands up and is three feet away from her as soon as he registers the sound of her footsteps near the front door. 

"What are you doing here?" he demands, looking her up and down hungrily, before taking a step back. Elena watches as that horrible mask of hate and distance rise up in his eyes.

"Stefan said..." Elena heart shatters as the mask is completed at the use of Stefan's name. 

"Stefan." His brother's name is accompanied by a mocking smirk on Damon's lips. "I'm afraid little brother isn't in right now." His eyes flashed. "Are you sure he gave you the right address?"

"Yes," Elena says distractedly. "Damon, I..."

Damon lifts his chin. "Uh uh, it must be such a disappointment to be greeted by the wrong brother. Let me think, what can I do to make this up to you?" 

He gives a devilish wink that causes Elena's traitorous heart to leap because it's one of the first ways about him that charmed its way into her heart. Even though she knows he's using it as a front right now, Elena can't help but be drawn in. 

"Scotch or bourbon," he offers, sauntering the first few steps in the direction of their bar, and then speeding the rest of the way over. "Since, legally, you're allowed to drink on your own property now." He gives her his infamous eyebrow wiggle. "Though I wouldn't let that stop you if you weren't."

"Damon... stop." Elena takes the distance between herself and the bar more slowly, out of necessity but also out of a hope that she can somehow turn this conversation around. She tries not to wear too much of her heart in her eyes as, right now, she simply doesn't trust that Damon won't just turn around and throw it in her face. She wonders how much he's been drinking--human and alcohol--and how long he's been left alone. Looking out for his brother is one thing, but Damon needs people who help his restraint around him. Elena knows that Damon hasn't seen much of Alaric since Ric was released from jail and found out he might actually be a killer. 

Damon looks back at her with somewhat glazed eyes. "Still not having fun? Hmm." Abandoning the alcohol glasses--or, rather, hers. His goes down the hatch before being slammed back down on the bar behind him--Damon walks with a little gig across to the stereo. "Maybe a little music to loosen us up? I know that worked with Vicky..."

They both know how that worked with Vicky and, this time, Elena's not able to hide the horror that enters her face over the fact that Damon could use the memory of Matt's sister like that.

When she looks at him again, his facade has shifted back a couple of steps, almost like Damon himself can't believe he just brought that up. Then he blinks, and Elena sees him start to steel up his resolve.

"Damon, stop." Elena's entreaty sounds stronger to her ears this time. She speaks up before he can do or say anything that they're both going to hate him for later. "I know what you're doing."

Damon gives her a crooked smile but, for a blessing, he doesn't say anything. 

Elena dares to take another couple of steps towards him and towards the stereo. In reality, she feels more like she's walking towards a wild animal than towards the man she has fallen in love with. In Damon's case, both descriptions are true. 

"I know you're trying to make me hate you so that me and Stefan get back together again," she says. "It's not going to work."

For the first time, honest surprise enters Damon's gaze, only to be blinked away. "I know that he's done some pretty messed up shit, Elena, but you've forgiven him before."

"It's not that I don't forgive him." Now they were coming to the crux of it. Elena made sure to take in deep breaths in the attempt of lowering the heartrate that suddenly started pounding a mile a minute. From the way that Damon's gaze flickers down towards her heart and then back up to her eyes, she knows that she has failed. "I just don't... I don't love Stefan anymore."

"Shh." Damon is very strict. "He may not be home now, but he could walk in at any moment and hear you."

Elena closes her eyes and opens them again. "I'm pretty sure that Stefan already knows." Again, Elena thinks about her gaze that Stefan caught, the way that he held Matt up from catching up with Elena and Damon, the way that he texted her tonight to tell her to come to the boarding house, and then was conspicuously absent. "I'm pretty sure Stefan already knows," she says again.

Damon watches her carefully for a time. Suddenly, he's not looking anywhere near as drunk as he just was. "Then what are you doing here?" he says roughly.

Here it is. The moment they've all been waiting for. Elena steels herself to look steadily into his eyes, takes another one of those much needed breaths, and tries to quickly order her thoughts into the words that she wants to say to Damon, finally.

She doesn't know whether it's because this is a stupid idea, or the fact that it's just taken her so long to say these words, but it is so hard to make them come out. 

Thankfully, Damon is uncharacteristically silent, and patient.

"You told me once to remember what I felt while Stefan was away." Elena starts her admission slowly, like she wants to get every word that she says just right. She can see already that Damon's eyes are closing up, like he's waiting for a trick, or a joke, and doesn't want to get his hopes up. Elena can relate, but Damon's been doing this for longer, so she knows she's the one who has to make this move. "I remember everything I felt while Stefan was away. It feels like it's kind of impossible to forget."

Damon just watches her, cold blue eyes still as the rest of his lithe, almost feline form. Only his jaw gives away his tension. 

He doesn't say anything, so Elena just figures it's still her turn to talk. She doesn't know when she's supposed to stop talking, so she just hopes that Damon will give her some indication of it at some point down this road she seems to be taking. "I know I haven't been... great to you a lot of the time. Sometimes, I haven't even been very good to you. I'm not proud of that. And I'm not excusing it either. But, you need to understand, this wasn't an easy thing to come to come to terms with." And you didn't help with that, Elena thinks, but she doesn't say it. 

Damon shifts from one foot to the other, and his eyes narrow. Elena knows he's still searching for the trick here. She needs to give him a reason to believe it isn't there, and just hopes he doesn't interpret in her words a trick that doesn't exist.

"I know you have very little reason to believe me." It's the hardest thing to do to look at him while he's staring at her like that but she fears that, if she looks away from him now, she'll lose her very last chance to say any of these things and have them heard. "You have no idea how much I've regretted telling you that your feelings were a problem." If he believes only one thing, she wants it to be that. She impresses the importance of it into her tone. "They're not a problem, Damon. They've never been the problem."

Damon's jaw clenches and unclenches. He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then changes his mind. Elena's eyebrows lift.

"Say something, Damon," she entreats. "Something. Anything. What are you thinking right now?"

Damon lowers his head and says with, heavy irony, "Is this that moment when you make me say everything I've already told you before? Because I'm sick of saying those things, Elena. I've said them enough."

"I know!" Elena feels anxiety tighten her throat and tries to keep it under control, lest it undermine her words. She has to get through to him. She just _has_ to. "I'm not asking you to say... those things again. Just let me... let me prove to you that I mean what I say. Don't shut me out, Damon. Please."

Damon remains silent for a long time. So long, that Elena starts to feel despair flooding over her. It's all that she can do just to keep her head above it.

"Tell me again."

Elena looks at Damon in surprise. "What?"

Damon's eyelids flicker, but the rest of him doesn't change. "Tell me again."

Elena's spirit lifts. Her mouth opens, and she hardly knows which thing to say again first. "I love you, Damon. It wasn't deliberate, I didn't mean to. But I just did."

Damon shudders from the first time that Elena speaks her love of him. His head is still lowered, and the look he gives her is one of intensity and the very height of restraint. 

"You don't love Stefan." It's meant to be a statement, but Elena can tell from the slight lift at the end of the sentence that Damon still needs some reassurance.

"I don't love Stefan." Elena shakes her head. "I'm not even sure when it happened. The _last_ thing I want you to do is try to pull us back together again." Her eyes soften, and she knows that it's inconvenient, and it's messy, but it's all she wants. The only thing she wants is him. If they can work that out, they can work the rest out later.

Though he doesn't technically need to breathe, Elena can see his chest rise and fall in belaboured breaths. She can't take her eyes off him, watching every single shift in his eyes as though it's a lifeline that will give her the answers she so desperately needs to know.

Hesitantingly, she makes the first move towards him. He watches her just as carefully as she's watched him, but he doesn't pull back, even when she lifts her hand and entwines her fingers with his.

"I want you," she whispered up at him, hoping he would see the truth of it shining in her eyes as everyone else had, long before she was ready, all the way up till it was almost too late to admit it. Damon peers into her eyes and, whatever he longs to see there, he finds.

"I've only dreamed..." Damon starts, but it's not a sentence he finishes before he sweeps down and claims her lips in a kiss.


End file.
